Price of Dirt Soars 800 Percent Leading to Shortages, Widespread Rioting

Record oil prices and rising sea levels have driven the price of dirt up 800 percent since January, leading to worldwide shortages and mass rioting. Agencies across third world countries have reported a significant breakdown in the social order as bandits and militias raid dirt farms and forcefully intercept dirt shipments from relief organizations as the world braces for a global catastrophe.

"It's like nothing we've seen before," DIRTFAM director Clod Mudman said Friday. "These countries, more than any others, depend on dirt for their livelihoods. This is truly a crisis of epic proportions."

Dirt riots have become commonplace in Egypt, Yemen, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal, and Mudman predicts the situation is not likely to improve.

"The dirt farmers have no way to protect their crop," Mudman said. "And it's becoming impossible for us to get dirt to the people who need it most."

People in the third world depend heavily on dirt for both food and housing. Haitian dirt, for example, is considered a delicacy and is in particularly high demand. Dirt is also the number one building resource in the third world, raising concerns for the future of structure-building in these countries.

"It used to be that they could at least, as a last resort, burrow into the ground like mole-people to get out of the elements," Mudman said. "But with dirt going the way it's going, it is looking more and more like we are going to have to go back to caves at some point."

Nguyen Ngnu, of Thailand, is on the verge of doing just that. Ngnu, a 33-year-old father of nine, sold chicken beaks at a local market before the dirt shortage. As dirt became scarce, Ngnu was forced to sell his chickens and most of the family's possessions.

"There is no more dirt," Ngnu said. "Where is the dirt? The government says to be patient, that there will be dirt but how long can we wait?"

With no more dirt to raise his chickens on, and as a result no beaks to take to market, Ngnu and his family are facing the dirtless future.

"We have no food, our floor is down to bedrock," Ngnu said. "When we had a dirt floor at least it could be leveled and not digging into our backs as we slept. Pang, our oldest, is out searching for a cave. When he finds one, we will go."

In the meantime, Ngnu and so many others like him find ways to cope without dirt, but they are running out of time. Mudman estimates that, without intervention, dirt distribution among the third world could fall as much as 75 percent in just the next year. If that happens, look for dirt-based violence to dramatically escalate, he said.

"It's up to us, who live in dirt-rich countries, to find a solution," Mudman said. "We have plenty of dirt to spare. In America alone we waste more dirt in a day than many of these countries produce in a year. For the cost of a single mud bath, you could feed dirt to a small village for six months. Something to think about."